A bookworm and

life-long dreamer

turned writer

Hi you, I’m Elin.

My happy place is a state of mind. It’s when my fingers clatter over the keyboard, barely keeping up with my thoughts. I have music on, a steaming cup of tea beside me, maybe I’m in the garden or inside and it’s raining, or I’m in the office and I’m oblivious of all going on around me.

I have not always lived in my happy place. Once upon a time, I tried to write a novel. But back then, I was riddled by self-doubt, stressed and impatient, and most of all I desperately feared failure.

This conundrum was the start of an obsession with understanding the creative process. And what I’ve found is that the outward success in your creative life is so completely dependent on your inward fulfilment in the process.

I’m a writer, and I’m a writer who also writes about writing. Writing is my happy place, my thought process, my job, my vocation, my life-long love.

I believe in a creative life that is good on the inside

A joyful, balanced

and effective

creative process

Build a happy, healthy and effective creative process rooted in balance, joy and fulfilment. Move beyond hustle culture, stress and towards a more natural life.

An authentic and

internally driven

creative vision

Find your creative voice and vision by looking inside and getting to know your creativity, rather than worrying about what the world expects from you.

A healthy, brave

and supportive

creative mindset

Strengthen your creative confidence and move beyond procrastination, so you can do the creative projects you dream of and be the creative person you want to be.

A little about me…

I live in Sweden together with my partner Petrus and our cats Alice and Pysen. Our house is in a cute neighbourhood with a forest and lakes just nearby, which I love.

Though I feel at home in nature, I enjoy going into the city, Stockholm, to roam cafés and bookstores. My job as a copy and content writer at a tech start up is smack dab in the city centre.

I’m a lover of Moomin cups and the turn of the seasons and Gilmore Girls. I’m addicted to the feeling of a new beginning, and I’m an INFJ.

I have a master’s degree in political science and I’m a nerd. I love to learn new things, I never go anywhere without a book and I thoroughly enjoyed university.

Honesty and transparency are important values of mine, and though I’m a generally optimistic and positive person, I also share the messy reality. That’s life, after all.

Some of my favourite books

The books I love most tend to be character-driven stories filled with complex characters trying to navigate their complex relationship. I read a variety of books, but mostly contemporary and literary fiction.

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney

MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt

PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke

My story

I was a kid who wrote. I made up stories, and I dreamed of becoming an author. I lived part-time in books. At university, I studied political science, but I started my first attempt at writing a novel in my free time. It was hard; it was wonderful.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015, two years after graduation. I was sitting in the office of my government job, bored. A question was nagging the back of my mind. Was this it?

I saw so clearly how time could slip by and my dream of writing novels would stay that - a dream. All while I spent my days turning the wheels of bureaucracy.

That day in the office, I listened to a podcast. It was a story about an Instagram influencer, and there was something she said that hit right me in the heart. 

I realised I wanted to create. 

I started exploring the online world of creativity, content creators and online businesses. I fell in love with it. I wanted to join it. Put my creativity out into the world. 

But like with writing my novel, it was hard. I had listened to those who said creativity was only for the chosen few. I had become terrified of failure, and that fear of failure was becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. It was keeping me frozen, unable to move forward.

Then I made one of my life’s

best choices: I decided to

face my creative fears.

In January 2016, I set out on what I called my Fear Year. With a heart beating from both fear and years of unreleased creative energy, I started blogging, started my Instagram account, and finished a draft of the novel I’d been working on. Once again, creating became a natural part of my life. Just like it had when I was a kid.

Since then, I’ve been creating and sharing online. I got really nerdy about the creative process, tried all forms of content, started coaching other creatives, left my bureaucracy job and tried self-employed life for a while. I sent my finished novel to publishers and gathered rejection emails, but also some good feedback.

Then I got a job creating content and writing copy in the marketing team at Tendium, a young AI company. I absolutely love it.

So now, I work my writing job, and I keep doing my own projects in my spare time. Writing my Substack, fiddling away at a new novel project and pondering the twists and turns that is the creative life.

So, where to next?

  • Subscribe to my Substack

    Read my writing about creativity, the creative process and the continuous act of building a good creative life.

    Read

  • Explore resources for creatives

    How about a seasonal planning guide, or a project journal? Take a look at my resources for creatives!

    Explore

  • Listen to my podcast Inside Creativity

    My former podcast about making the creative projects you dream of, and building a good creative life.

    Listen